In the End
by Miss C Riddle
Summary: Alternate ending to Deathly Hallows. How it could have gone if Harry hadn't made it to the forest in the time limit.


A foot caught under his chest and he cried out as his body flew several feet across the broken grounds.

Fire raged over the grounds though nothing could light the scene better than the green light of the killing curse as it flew. The sky was dark and his glasses had been lost after the last kick.

A blurred figure stalked him and he shuffled away as best he could, pain lanced through him as a curse struck true - The Cruciatus. Harry cried out, writhed even though this jarred his injuries more. The pain was more than he'd known, and he wondered how he'd coped in his fourth year in the graveyard. Now... Harry was tired, exhausted, on the brink, he'd been too late to get to the forest and Voldemort had lain siege to the castle once more. He brutally killed everyone in his path and Harry couldn't bring himself to think of the friends he had lost.

The pain in his chest from physical injury alone was bad enough, the guilt he'd lay upon himself if he survived would be ten times worse.

If he survived...

Neither could live while the other survived.

Harry remained prone on the ground as the unforgivable curse ended, his breathing painfully quick. He coughed and blood spewed from his lips onto the Dark Lord's robes.

Snape's memories had revealed much, so much had been handled badly by his deceased mentor, Dumbledore had ultimately failed him in both life and death. He'd left the fate of the world on the shoulders of a boy who didn't know what it was to be a man.

Neither could live.

Harry heard the cruel man laughing at him, felt the kick and recognised the jeers as Death Eaters in the crowd.

He tried to roll away, but that earned him another kick, then a curse that flung him into the air like a rag doll. Voldemort paraded him above the crowd with the spell in a fashion similar to the Quidditch World Cup from the summer before his fourth year.

He was dangled low enough for an unknown death eater to spit in his face, for another to lash out and break his nose, before the crowd moved, and suddenly he was being held in place just above the lake.

Could he survive? Would Voldemort live if he lived? Would Voldemort die if he did? Neither could survive. Nothing could survive.

His fingertips brushed the water, a cool contrast to the burning pain of his wounds, and everyone fell silent as Voldemort mercilessly dunked him into the depths. Harry didn't hear the splash, but he tried to scream as the freezing water immediately invaded his lungs. He choked and wondered if it was worth fighting this, but Voldemort lifted him up again, showing his weakened form off like a sick trophy.

A spell from a follower of the light had him coughing up the water more easily, and he hoped they ran and hid fast enough. He thanked them over and over in his mind as he spluttered and breathed a bit easier.

But then he was thrown under again.

Five times. Six times. He lost count.

Up and down, and Harry begged his lungs to give out, Harry pleaded his heart to stop beating. He wanted it to end.

Shivering, lips blue, he was finally placed on the ground at Voldemort's feet.

"The great Harry Potter... How the mighty have fallen." He heard those words, whispered in a tongue only a snake might understand, then a green light blurred his vision, and he knew bliss.

* * *

><p>Death was easy. He didn't need a resurrection stone to figure that out.<p>

You surrender to its warm, comforting grip and fall asleep.

Then you wake up in your mind, in purgatory.

Whatever it was, Harry didn't mind so much being there, he didn't mind the crying mass in the corner, he didn't mind that there were no trains in this king's cross.

He just needed a break from everything, he didn't want to move on, or move back.

So he rested, and when Dumbledore came to him and told him he had to choose, he felt an ache in his heart at the thought of abandoning those still alive to Voldemort's clutches. His heart was both his greatest strength and his greatest weakness, and with his heart in his throat, he willed himself back to the realm of the living.

* * *

><p>Immediately, he felt the cold, then the pain, but he knew he was not at Hogwarts anymore.<p>

He was on a marble floor, Voldemort rested in his throne and stared at him, looking heavily worn out, no one else was present.

"How did the prophecy end, Potter?" The man asked as soon as he witnessed a movement from the boy.

It took several attempts for Harry to talk, his lungs burned and his voice eventually only came out as a rasping whisper.

"Neither can live while the other survives."

"And you were my horcrux?"

"Yes."

"Your friends killed my snake."

"You're mortal once more, more horcruxes would drive you further into insanity, but any of the followers of the light could kill you now. Even your followers could." Harry told him, sitting up with careful movements. Voldemort didn't offer him any comfort like a chair or healing spells, and Harry didn't ask him.

Harry was confused at the side of the man he was seeing, the insanity seemed gone, he seemed hollow and empty and without hope. Perhaps without any more soul containers out there, the man had regained a level of sense.

"What is there beyond death?" Voldemort asked him, and Harry took time with his answer, sensing the conversation to be one of the most important he'd ever have.

"Peace. I knew peace, I was glad to welcome it. I found myself at a place of waiting, of in-between worlds. But my soul was intact, the splintered piece of soul you gave me took the curse and took the form of one in pain, I had the choice to find out what was next or to return to life. I'm not sure if you could find eternal peace or end in pain as your horcruxes seem to do. Life seems to hold us back, all must come to death in the end, the stars above turn to dust and bones in the ground become ash." Harry explained slowly, struggling with the words, "I don't fear the destruction of my body when I've had a taste of the peace I could know, many of the people I cared for died in this war and they will become ash, I only hope that beyond the waiting place I can see them again."

Voldemort listened to his words and remained in silence thereafter.

"I heard a tale on the wind... Of the Deathly Hallows..." The man eventually said.

"They will not bring true immortality, you could talk with the dead briefly, you could wield a wand that will get you killed or you could hide while seeking another method. You gained a victory today, but your followers saw you fall when I did, right?" Harry ventured.

"...They did."

"Then leave. Leave this country to its chaos and find somewhere to hide. Leave the war and change your face and name, become someone else and when it is your time to pass on, perhaps you will find peace instead of pain."

"I am their Lord, they would..." Voldemort began to protest, but then sat back in thought, his eyes seemed focused on something distant, until then his eyes landed on Harry and he gained a more determined expression.

"If I leave, you do too. This world knows that Harry Potter died tonight and are in mourning, they also know I fell at the same time, and though I recovered first, they don't know about you. I'd rather no one else be informed of my intentions, we'll both go, and... "keep tabs" on each other. Betray me and I'll kill you with a thought, even if it takes us both down again." The man demanded.

Then Harry, near to fainting from it all, nodded in agreement, elated at a peaceful end to their discussion. He nodded, then fell from his sitting position to lying down once more. Voldemort stood and begun to cast spells he didn't recognise, he was too busy fading away from consciousness to care. The world would be better off without the Dark Lord and the Boy-Who-Lived. The world could rebuild and eventually mend itself.

Perhaps in time, even they could.

* * *

><p><strong>This is my first write in a looooooong time, so what do you think? An idea got into my head and it had to be written. I've been staying away from fics for a while but this one... It had to be done.<strong>

**R&R?**

**Thanks,**

**MissCRiddle.**


End file.
